Abstract

Several generally accepted intonational features of questions in American English have not been the subject of much empirical study: namely that wh‐questions end in L‐L% phrasal accents, and that their intonational contours are identical to those of declarative sentences, while yes/no questions end in H‐H% phrasal accents. The study addresses the following questions about question intonation: How frequently do yes/no questions end in H‐H% phrasal tones, and how often do wh‐questions end in L‐L% phrasal tones? How similar are the intonational contours and features of declarative sentences and wh‐questions with phrase‐final falls (L‐L%)? How do the sentence pitch ranges of yes/no questions, wh‐questions, and declarative sentences compare? Does a speaker’s characteristic pitch range affect the character or frequency of occurrence of question phrasal‐tones? Speaker and utterance pitch ranges and their relation to prosodic features of pitch accents and phrasal tones were observed in yes/no and in wh‐questions, and compared to a sample of simple declarative sentences spoken by the same speakers: 5 female and 3 male American English professional voice talents. The same set of 12 sentences were read by each of the 8 speakers in the same contexts. Theoretical and practical implications of the results will be discussed.